Joerg Widmer named IEEE Fellow 2020

IMDEA Networks' Research Director has been conferred this prestigious distinction by the world's leading scientific professional organization in the field of technological innovation

02 December 2019

Dr Joerg Widmer, Research Professor and Director of Research at IMDEA Networks, has been awarded the prestigious Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Grade of Fellow for his contribution to the field of wireless networks and millimeter-wave communications. This recognition will take effect on 1 January 2020.

IEEE is the most important international professional organization for the advancement and application of technology in the field of electrical and electronic engineering. Each year, following a rigorous evaluation procedure, the IEEE Fellow Committee recommends a select group of recipients to receive an elevated IEEE status after considering an extensive merit report. In fact, fewer than 0.1% of voting members are selected annually for this distinction.

The Committee proposes the scientists chosen for elevation to Fellow status to the IEEE Board of Directors, which then analyzes the proposal and makes the final decision. The entire nomination and evaluation process requires more than one year of work. The IEEE Board of Directors is also responsible for formally informing all IEEE societies of the elevation to Fellow status, as well as the employer of each new Fellow, the university at which each new Fellow graduated, the nominator and endorsers of each new Fellow, and for making a public announcement in the media.

Furthermore, Joerg Widmer was recently named “Distinguished Member” by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for his outstanding contributions to the field of computing. He has focused his research on wireless networks, from very high frequency millimeter wave communication and MAC layer design to mobile network architectures. He is the author of over 100 conference and journal articles and three IETF RFCs, holds 13 patents, sits on the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on Communications, and regularly serves on program committees for several major conferences. He recently received an ERC Consolidator Fellowship, the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, as well as a Spanish Ramón y Cajal fellowship.

About Joerg Widmer

Professor Widmer received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Mannheim, Germany, in 2000 and 2003, respectively. From 2005 to 2010, he was manager of the Ubiquitous Networking Research Group at DOCOMO Euro-Labs in Munich, Germany, leading several projects in the area of mobile and cellular networks. Previously, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at EPFL, Switzerland, in ultra-wideband communication and network coding. He was a visiting researcher at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, California, USA and at University College London, UK.